The eunuch returned, followed by two slaves, who bore on a bier a corpse covered with a large pall.
Ævius drew it from the body.
Mesembrius pressed his hand upon his heart; the blood rushed to his temples; his breath failed; he could not move; he stood motionless for a time, then, with a wild cry of anguish, flung himself upon the lifeless form.
"My child! My dear, dear child!"
"So I have him to fear, too," murmured Carinus.
Sobbing aloud, Mesembrius embraced the beautiful, beloved body. Death had restored to the face the repose, the supernatural loveliness which had been peculiar to it in life. It seemed as though she were sleeping and at a call would wake.
"Oh, my dear, sweet child," sobbed the old man; "why must you leave me here? If you were resolved to die, why did you not appear to me in a dream, that I might have followed you? What have I to love in this world now that you are no more? What is to become of me, an old withered tree, whose only blossoming branch has been cut off? Have you no longer one word, one smile for me? Once you were so gay, so full of cheerful converse—oh, why must I endure this?"
The father turned neither to the Cæsar nor to the courtiers; he gave free course to his tears, burying his face in his dead daughter's winding-sheet.
But gradually he seemed to realise that he was weeping alone, and his dim eyes wandered around the apartment with a vague consciousness that there must be some one else here who owed to Sophronia's manes the tribute of tears.
There stood Manlius, with a cold, unsympathising face, talking to Carinus. Not a feature betrayed the slightest sorrow.